Recipe of the week: Meliga biscuits...best served dipped in Barolo!

Meliga pastries are typical biscuits of the Cuneo valleys. Crunchy and sweet, with different shapes which vary according to the local tradition, they were once served at the end of a meal. 

The recipe of Paste di Meliga is centuries old, as these traditional biscuits were prepared in farmhouses with ingredients easily found (cornmeal and wheat flour).

It is said that bakers began to mix cornmeal with wheat flour due to an increase in the price of wheat. Cornmeal biscuits have a very soft and fluffy dough shaped, using a pastry bag, in small round donut or rectangular shapes. 

In the Barge area, they are known as "batiaje", since they were offered during baptism celebrations (batjè in Piedmontese means baptism).

Mondovì Meliga biscuits are now a Slow Food Presidium.

Ingredients:

1 kg wheat flour

1/2 kg maize flour (meliga or "melia" in the Piedmontese dialect) - better of the old variety and very finely ground

1 kg butter

700 g sugar

5 whole eggs

10 g salt

grated rind of 1 lemon

baking soda

Directions:

Mix the softened butter and the sugar with the eggs, the salt and lemon rind, sieve the flour and knead briefly; leave for ten minutes in a cool place. Shape each single biscuit with the pastry bag and place on baking tins; bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes. 

Best served with zabaglione, a glass of sweet Moscato, Barolo or Dolcetto d'Alba red wine.